


Beginnings

by Midnight_Ophelia



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Character Study, Edgar Markov is a bag of dicks, Gen, Origin Story, Sorin is an angry individual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 11:56:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5784478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnight_Ophelia/pseuds/Midnight_Ophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even ancient things have a beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> A second attempt at the possible origin story for Sorin. This has been sitting on my computer, finished, for at least two months. I figure with my current hype over Shadows Over Innistrad (still, lamentfully, three months away) now’s a good time to edit and post.

He should have realized sooner that his grandfather's secrets and mania would lead up to this.

_Dark. Light. Pain. Light again. Cold coagulation forced down his throat. Copper in his mouth._

“Blood is your life, now,” he's told as he attempts to adjust to the changes made to himself. To say the whole situation is a shock would be something of an understatement. It's enough of one to awaken something that had been dormant in his soul, something that is part of the fiber of his very being. He's never heard of it before, not until it's happened.

The word is an odd one and it combines with another, one far less savory.

_Planeswalker...Vampire..._

The word is not confirmed until he's appeared on another world, and it suddenly becomes very clear that it is what he is when he meets another similar to him. As far as he knows he's the only vampire to become a Planeswalker, something that shouldn't be possible. However, he's not dead in the truest sense of the word. His heart still beats. He's no walking corpse. Although, he has no reason to breathe, and sleep is not something he needs so often anymore. He can go nearly weeks without it. What marks him truly as one of those creatures is the dependence on blood as a food source. Nothing else suits him. When he tries to eat normal food, it tastes like ash from a fireplace and he chokes.

“You no longer need to eat such food,” Edgar tells him so obviously once he's returned to Innistrad, starving and confused, and more than just a little bit angry.

“You did this,” he snarls, staring at his grandfather through a mess of shocking white and a wild expression on his gaunt face. It hurts. It hurts more than he ever thought possible.

“I saved you is what I did. Never forget this, Sorin.” Edgar's done the same to himself, but he's taking it with far more grace than his grandson, who hadn't known what he was in for when the spell had gone off. “You're in my debt.”

“I never asked for it.” He expected that he would die during the famine. Everyone else had. His mother, his father. The only family he has left is Edgar and only because even death won't take the old man in the end. It would be humorously ironic if it didn't make Sorin's blood run even colder than it naturally does now.

Instead of waiting for any sort of response Edgar might have given, Sorin turns on his heel and leaves the room before he does something he might surely regret later once his rage fizzles out.

* * *

Sorin slowly grows used to the characteristics of his kind. Catching his own face in a reflective surface no longer leaves him bewildered when it's not the warm, brown eyes that he had been born with that meet him but instead bright gold and pitch black, and not dark hair but white. Even his skin has changed. He's always been pale, just like everyone else on Innistrad, where little sunlight is seen, but he's far more gray than pale. His body has even filled out even after the famine that stole away much of his muscle mass when there was no food to be spoken of.

No, they don't bother him anymore, not after the long stretch of a thousand years has gone by.

It's the blood, he later concludes. Not the killing. He's grown accustomed to the necessity of killing a human every few days. It's the weakness of the act. He's powerful, more powerful than his own kind thanks to the gifts that come with the Spark, but the very human need to feed or else die grates on him. The first and only time he attempts to break out of the 'habit' it goes all very awry.

When the bloodlust becomes too much to bear several days later, he tears his way through a small village of humans on a plane that he doesn't bother to learn the name of. He's so out of it that he doesn't register the screams around him as his arm darts out to grab a man by the neck. He stares at him blankly as the weak creature pitifully pleads mercy. Sorin is impassive when his teeth rip into the thin flesh of the man's neck and warm, fresh blood fills his mouth. He drinks deeply and ignores the hands clawing at his shoulders, trying to get free. They slowly grow still as the life leaves him, and when there's nothing left, Sorin drops the empty husk and moves onto another.

They scramble around him like insects, trying to get away from him. His sword -a dark and deadly artifact with as much of a thirst for blood as he- finds a home in the bellies of those who try and fight back with their own weapons, and when he pulls it out he takes their guts out with it. The ground is covered in a mess of viscera and he steps over it.

It takes several more bodies before his mind returns to him.

Sorin feels a vague, nauseous sensation when he looks upon the grotesque mess he's made. No one's survived the attack; not the women nor the children. He's covered in their blood. It drips from the ends of his hair and off his chin and stains his clothes. The smell of it fills his nose. Trembling slightly, he leaves the plane. The memory, however, lingers in the back of his mind as a constant reminder of his own horrific potential.

* * *

The vampire population on Innistrad grows with at an alarming rate as all the heads of the families chosen to take part in the ritual that made them pass on their traits. The famine is no longer an issue; there's barely a sign it was ever there to begin with. Only the vampires that had been human when it happened remember it and most recount it with some fondness after what was given to them in recompense.

They treat Sorin like some sort of prince. After all, he's the grandson of the man that gave them the gift of agelessness and power that came with it. Sorin's eccentric in their eyes. He never stays around long and goes disappearing for months, sometimes years, at a time.

“He must think himself too good for us,” some say, whispered lowly in their sitting rooms, a victim of their thirst laying at their feet. Still, they respect him for what he is even if they do not understand him and his peculiarities.

Sorin doesn't particularly care what they say about him. Their opinions are the least of his concerns. While they sit in their castles and manors, he's protecting their existence. It would only be a matter of time before the Eldrazi turned them to dust if he hadn't intervened.

When he returns, Edgar is still distant from him, and Sorin finds he doesn't care that he is. Their relationship has never mended after the ordeal and he never forgives him for not telling him what he was participating in. Sorin may have learned to live with vampirism -and will even admit to the perks of it- but that doesn't mean that he will forget transgressions. He's a lot of things, but forgiving is not amongst them. He holds onto grudges and lets them stew in his belly until he has the opportune moment to release them in some act of vengeance, as sweet as wine.

Sorin's disdain for the man grows when he learns of the mess his brethren are making of his plane while he's been away. Edgar has done nothing to prevent it and instead hides away, pretending not to notice how the human population dwindles and the pile of mutilated corpses grow.

“You must do something,” he expresses, coming to speak with him in person with ever rising frustration. He pounds a fist on his grandfather's desk, eyes blazing. “Where have you been while our homeland is falling apart? Are you so caught up in your own smugness that you'd fail to see it?”

Edgar is frowning at him like he's nothing more than a child still clinging to his mother's skirts and the anger in Sorin's chest threatens to burst through the bone.

“It's none of my concern what our people choose to do,” he says with such nonchalance that it stuns Sorin into silence. “I'm certainly not their ruler. Let the humans clamor amongst themselves to find a way to protect themselves. Innistrad has no place for the weak.”

“You're a damned fool if you should think like that!”

He's so enraged that he doesn't realize that Edgar's gotten to his feet until his cheek is stinging from where it's been struck.

“Be quiet, boy. I would think that as old as you are you would have learned a few lessons by now.” Edgar takes his seat once more. “Some things are out of your hands. You'd do well to remember that.”

The fury drains from Sorin's face and his insides go strangely numb. Almost mechanically, he gives a short nod.

Pleased with his grandson's evident submission to his better judgment, Edgar gives a small, clipped smile.

Sorin is far from submissive. If Edgar won't listen to reason, then he has no choice but to take things into his own hands if it means the survival of humans on his plane. If he doesn't his kind is sure to eat their way through the population before they turn on each other out of desperation. If that happens, its going to be as doomed as if the Eldrazi had devoured it.

Something needs to be done.

* * *

He disappears from Innistrad again for a long stretch of years and during his long absence the situation on Innistrad grows dire as his kind take advantage of it. If he's not there, why should they bother curbing their hunger? After all, it's their nature and they deserve to have what they wish. It's this very way of thinking that brings about what happens next.

An angel.

Avacyn keeps things in line, but never enough for one to overtake the other. The important thing is that she gives the humans hope and their prayers keep the things that go bump in the night at bay. There are other results from her creation; Sorin becomes the most hated person amongst his kind and his name something of a warning to humans.

He's not bothered by it, even though he should be. He's done the right thing for both the vampires and the humans. There's balance to the plane. Being reviled by everyone is a hit he's willing to take if it only helps things in the long run. Edgar is less than thrilled when he learns of what Sorin's done and the moment he walks in, Edgar greets him with all the coolness of an arctic winter.

“You are no longer welcomed here,” Edgar says, staring at him with an unblinking gaze. “As far as I'm concerned, you are no longer a part of this family.”

Sorin laughs humorlessly. “Of course. You'd much rather estrange your last blood kin than to admit that what I've done has saved this place. How very typical.”

For a quick moment, he thought that perhaps Edgar was going to strike him for the second time in years, but instead he takes a deep breath and turns his back. “Leave. I won't ask twice.”

Sorin stares at his back for a moment, picturing driving his sword into it. A dangerous fantasy for surely there would be retribution from those loyal to him.

“Fine,” he utters.

The door is loud when it slams shut behind him, echoing down the halls. Those that he passes as he walks either completely ignore him or glare threateningly. They wouldn't dare try to attack him. Even they're not that stupid. A part of Sorin wishes that they would; he could use something or someone to vent at.

Of course, it doesn't happen and the moment he leaves the manor, he Walks away. There's nothing left for him to deal with on Innistrad for the foreseeable future.

* * *

History has a habit of repeating itself. Avacyn goes missing and the moment that she does, the vampires, werewolves, and ghouls converge on the humans. Sorin doesn't get to intervene once he arrives as he's sidetracked by another Planeswalker. After he's sent the whelp running, his angel has already returned and he has more important things to deal with. He's confident that she'll take care of everything.

Eldrazi are a much bigger threat, now that they've been released thanks to a series of vexing events and he has allies to locate.


End file.
